Chapter 4: Isaiah 17

The specific details of this chapter are such that our study will require a verse by verse analysis. So we will begin with the first verse.

1The burden against Damascus.

“Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city,

And it will be a ruinous heap.

From the very start of this chapter, we can tell that this is an as yet unfulfilled prophecy. Damascus is the oldest, continually inhabited city in the world. Since long before the day Isaiah wrote these words, at least until the writing of this book, Damascus has never ceased from being a city, and has never become a ruinous heap.

I will also add this side note. The Bible is written in formal language, and has been translated into formal English. But I sometimes find it easier to understand if I can translate a verse into more common verbiage. So for this verse, instead of “Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city,” I might say, “Check it out, Damascus is getting completely annihilated.”

2The cities of Aroer are forsaken;

They will be for flocks

Which lie down, and no one will make them afraid.

What was known as Aroer in Isaiah’s day, is called Jordan today. Due to prevailing wind patterns in the region, this is downwind from Damascus. This is saying that the cities in Jordan will be evacuated, and left for wild animals to inhabit.

3The fortress also will cease from Ephraim,

The kingdom from Damascus,

And the remnant of Syria;

They will be as the glory of the children of Israel,”

Says the Lord of hosts.

Ephraim is the territory in central Israel, and was given to the descendants of Ephraim, son of Jacob, when the Israelites entered the Promised Land after the Exodus from Egypt. This territory is due east of Tel Aviv. The first half of this verse indicates that first, something devastating happens in central Israel, then immediately afterward, something devastates Damascus.

The second half of the verse tells us that the devastation of Damascus affects all of Syria. This would seem to make sense since Damascus is the capital of Syria, but the verse tells us something more. The people of Syria are not just left without national leadership. They are reduced to a remnant of what once was. The expression “the glory of the children of Israel” is an Old Testament expression that refers to very few remaining where there once were many. This comes from the idea of the best of the best is the glory of a thing, and not many attain the level of the best of the best. The thought is that only the very few strongest of people survived the devastation. This is telling us that throughout the entire nation of Syria, only a very few people survive the devastation.

4“In that day it shall come to pass

That the glory of Jacob will wane,

And the fatness of his flesh grow lean.

The idea of something waning is that it is fading away. In this case, from the context, this is indicating that Israel, Jacob’s descendants, as a nation is weakened. Something is causing a wasting away of the Israelis. Specifically, their physical bodies are getting weak and thin. The cause of this wasting away of the Israelis is not discussed, but it is somehow being linked to the destruction of Damascus, as a precursor.

5It shall be as when the harvester gathers the grain,

And reaps the heads with his arm;

It shall be as he who gathers heads of grain

In the Valley of Rephaim.

6Yet gleaning grapes will be left in it,

Like the shaking of an olive tree,

Two or three olives at the top of the uppermost bough,

Four or five in its most fruitful branches,”

Says the Lord God of Israel.

In these two verses, there are several analogies. They all refer to the harvesting of crops. In each case, the vast majority of the crop is harvested and collected, but a very little bit of the crop is left behind. These two verses focus on the small amount left behind. A healthy olive branch can have up to about a hundred olives on it, so a healthy olive tree can literally produce thousands of olives in a single year. These verses liken the remnants of people left behind in Ephraim and Syria to two or three olives left in an entire tree, possibly as many as four or five such olives. The concept is where there once were thousands of people, there will be five or fewer remaining. Something significant is going to devastate these areas, and the loss of life will be unbelievable.

7In that day a man will look to his Maker,

And his eyes will have respect for the Holy One of Israel.

8He will not look to the altars,

The work of his hands;

He will not respect what his fingers have made,

Nor the wooden images nor the incense altars.

To explain these two verses, I must first describe an Old Testament pattern that continues on to this day, but is not really discussed in the New Testament. This pattern is most predominantly displayed in the book of Judges. It goes like this. God’s people serve Him, so He blesses them. They become complacent in those blessings, and begin to take them for granted. They forget that the blessings are bestowed on them because they have been serving God. So God sends prophets to remind them, and to encourage them to return to serving Him. The prophets are ignored, mistreated, and often killed. God removes His hand of blessing, and some form of tribulation overtakes His people. The suffering from the tribulation causes them to turn back to God and serve Him once again, so He blesses them. And the whole cycle repeats itself. This cycle repeats itself so many times that at one point, in the book of Judges (10:11-14), the people turn back to God, and He responds by saying, “Did I not deliver you from the Egyptians and from the Amorites and from the people of Ammon and from the Philistines? ¹² Also the Sidonians and Amalekites and Maonites oppressed you; and you cried out to Me, and I delivered you from their hand. ¹³ Yet you have forsaken Me and served other gods. Therefore I will deliver you no more. ¹⁴ Go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen; let them deliver you in your time of distress.” The point of this pattern is to show beyond all doubt that God allows tribulation on the earth as a last resort to turn people back to Him so that He can bless them.

These two verses in Isaiah tell God’s reasoning for allowing the horrors described in this chapter to happen. He is desperate to turn people back to Him. This is the motivation behind the events described in this chapter.

9In that day his strong cities will be as a forsaken bough

And an uppermost branch,

Which they left because of the children of Israel;

And there will be desolation.

Returning momentarily to the subject at hand, this verse tells us that Damascus’s cities—the cities of Syria—will be evacuated, and that they are evacuated because of something done by “the children of Israel.” So this verse tells us that Israel is the cause of the annihilation of Damascus and the subsequent evacuations of surrounding and downwind cities. But before we start pointing the finger of blame at Israel, we already know that this is in response to something that has caused death and wasting away in Israel.

10Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation,

And have not been mindful of the Rock of your stronghold,

Therefore you will plant pleasant plants

And set out foreign seedlings;

11In the day you will make your plant to grow,

And in the morning you will make your seed to flourish;

But the harvest will be a heap of ruins

In the day of grief and desperate sorrow.

Now we see another reason why God allows this. In verses 7 and 8, we saw God’s motivation: To turn people back to Him. Here we see His justification: Those who have dedicated themselves to Him have turned away from Him. This is not an unjust, undeserved punishment that He is allowing just to satisfy His motivation. Rather, these events are caused by those who have turned away from God, these events happen to those who have turned away from Him, and are justified by the fact of that turning away.

Not only that, but these verses also give timing and another detail. First the timing. When these events occur is described as the day of grief and desperate sorrow. This is with good cause as we have seen. The harvest is mentioned, indicating that these events occur either right before or in the early part of the harvest season. This is probably sometime in late summer. The other detail is that these events will be sudden and unexpected. Note that “in the morning you will make your seed to flourish.” This suggest that the morning the events occur, no one is expecting anything bad to happen, but that very day, the day of grief and desperate sorrow, the harvest is destroyed.

12Woe to the multitude of many people

Who make a noise like the roar of the seas,

And to the rushing of nations

That make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!

13The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters;

But God will rebuke them and they will flee far away,

And be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind,

Like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.

These verses tell about the world’s response to these events. At the time of this writing, the nation of Israel just completed a 50 day war with the Hamas terrorist organization that rules in the Gaza Strip. This war was precipitated by Hamas launching thousands of missiles at Israeli civilians without provocation. There were multiple cease-fires during this war, all of which were broken by Hamas. Israel went out of its way to avoid hitting civilian targets while Hamas hid its weapons behind its own civilians. And yet, through all of this, the nations of the world labeled Israel as the aggressor, and condemned Israel for protecting itself. There is no possible way that the events described in this chapter can occur without the nations of the world retaliating against Israel. These verses indicate that they will retaliate, but that God, Himself, will chase them off. This will be expounded on in the next chapter, since this retaliation is described in detail elsewhere in prophecy. But before we get to that, Isaiah 17 contains one final note that has a few pieces of information in it.

14Then behold, at eventide, trouble!

And before the morning, he is no more.

This is the portion of those who plunder us,

And the lot of those who rob us.

The word here translated as “eventide” is the Hebrew word meaning, “evening.” So there is some sort of trouble in the evening, and before the morning, Damascus no longer exists. Israel’s justification for destroying Damascus? “This is the portion of those who plunder us, and the lot of those who rob us;” Israel was attacked first, and this is their response.

Summary

To summarize all of this, sometime in the late summer, without provocation, Israel is hit with a devastating attack that could either be chemical, biological, or nuclear. This attack is probably aimed at Tel Aviv, but falls short and lands in central Israel, east of Tel Aviv. Syria has obviously launched the attack. Israel responds by literally turning the entire city of Damascus into a heap of ruins overnight. In other words, Israel is so devastated by the unprovoked attack from Syria that it launches a successful nuclear attack against Syria’s capital city, Damascus.

So now we will look at how the rest of the world will respond.

 Chapter 5: https://usa.life/read-blog/3618